A Mint Rose For Tom Riddle
by jointheconga
Summary: Lord Voldemort, when seeking his tiny little lady, constantly fought against his own black goblins. And how strange it was that, by playing his part as the brave tin soldier, he ultimately became the "black goblin" of millions.


_This story revolves around another short story titled "The Brave Tin Soldier", written by Hans Christian_ _Andersen. You can find a link to a copy of it on my profile. Enjoy_

_--_

Tom Riddle allowed his fingers, pale and small, to circle idly around one of the corners of his book. It was a simple looking book, black and bearing no writing on the cover. The dark leather was cracked on the edges of the spine, almost coming apart from the years of damage and neglect given to it as it stayed, confined, in the stark orphanage.

Would Tom ever become like this book? Aged and weary from years of bitter imprisonment in this dingy hole? At least the people here liked this book, liked it in a way that nobody did Tom...

A book of fairy tales... Tom didn't especially care for fairy tales. The children at the orphanage couldn't get enough of them, hence the book's devastated appearance. But Tom didn't. In fact, there was only one fairy tale that intrigued him enough to read more than once.

He supposed that it really wasn't a fairy tale, more of a short story of sorts. Fairy tales were for _romantic_ people who clung to the hopes of impossibilities. This was not a fairy tale. There weren't heroic princes with handsome stallions or beautiful maidens with fluttering lashes or evil wizards corrupting the fabrics of nature's serenity, nothing of the sort!. There wasn't a squeaky-clean lesson to be learned, nor was there a laughing and fantastic end.

Tom opened the book again. He flipped through the pages, skimming until he met the bold inking of the name he was looking for. "Hans Christian Andersen". _Funny man..._ Tom thought.

"_There were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers, who were all brothers, for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon."_

Every time Tom read that, he thanked his very wits for the story not to begin with the words,_ "Once upon a time..." _He acknowledged that the beginning was similar to those accursed words, but not the same. It was unique. Unique, and still the same.

That was how Tom felt sometimes. Unique. But the same. He couldn't ever quite put his finger on it, but he figured that it was probably the reason he didn't like fairy tales. Fairy tales were for people who wished to be different, to be _better_. Tom already knew he was. He just didn't know how.

The tin soldier in the story was very different from his brothers. He only had one leg, because there was not enough tin from the spoon left to complete him. Some would say that having only one leg made him less of a toy, but Tom liked to think that it was this that made him stand firm against all that he faced. Tom would later realize that this was what the orphanage had done to him; made him stand firm as he cast the killing curse at his father.

But the tiny little lady of paper... Tom had tried making her once. He succeeded in portraying her figure, a dainty leg held high above her head in a dancing pose, never moving from her position. He could never find a blue ribbon that looked right, though. In his disappointment, he had settled for a green-of-mint lace trimming instead.

The tinsel rose he had adorned her with was given to him by a snake that found him in the countryside on one of the orphanage's trips. He had thanked it by letting it rest on his hand, absorbing the heat there until it was content to slip away again. Tom never knew how the snake had found the rose in the first place, but he thought that it was probably better that way. He didn't know why.

Billy Stubbs had crumpled her into a ball when he found her, just a few years before. Tom was angered to such a point that Stubbs had run away from the look in the younger boy's eyes. Neither Tom or Stubbs were sure of what exactly the look was, but Tom had carefully and wordlessly unfolded the paper figurine once the boy was out of sight. As he meticulously creased back the edges, Tom observed that the wrinkles that were sure to have been there were absent, just as he had willed them to be. The next day, Stubbs's rabbit was hanging from the ceiling. And Tom laughed loudly in the privacy of his room.

Tom had named the doll. Mint-Rose was what he called her. It felt wrong to give her a common name, or to give her a realistic name at all! Tom had felt almost sick when he thought of all the pretty, petty names he could bestow her. He had just decided to name her after her appearance. The name stuck.

There was one rainy night, not too long ago, that found Tom very lonely and almost depressed. He had been confined to his room, though Mrs. Cole didn't have any proof at all that he had done something to Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. They couldn't tell Mrs. Cole anything. He had pulled Mint-Rose out of her wardrobe-home and made her move about in the air to dance. After an hour or so, he willed her to come alive. And her eyes, always open, blue and blank, had finally seen him. And she had smiled.

She couldn't talk. She couldn't open her mouth at all. But her small smile and tiny, bright eyes had made up for her lack of words. Tom figured that, because she couldn't talk, he liked her all the more. He had talked to her, though, and she had smiled sweetly back, giggling soundlessly and covering her lips with little, white hands as he laughed with her. Dumbledore would never know exactly how wrong, and yet, _right_ he had been when observing the young Lord Voldemort. How strange it was that Tom Riddle's only friend was a paper doll.

He had let her dance across the back of his hand; twirl across his small, iron table; snuggle deeply into his stiff and starched pillow. He watched as she grew fascinated with the story of the tin man as he told it aloud to her, and let her whimper in his palm as he concluded with the tin soldier's sorrowful melting. He never told her the part about the paper doll's burning. It was probably the only time in Tom's childhood where he acted out of a purely human kindness to cheer up the small figurine.

Mint-Rose had insisted on sleeping in his hair that night. When Tom woke up, he immediately reached to his scalp to untangle the little paper figure from his raven locks. But she was just a doll again, inanimate, and always, always balancing with her leg held high above her head.

Tom didn't bring her back again that year. Or the next year. Or the year after that. It was a very long while before he gave her life again, in fact. But he did keep her, safe and tucked away in the confines of his wardrobe. It was too peculiar to him that he would grow attached to anything, especially something as fragile as a paper doll. He still thought of her, though, when he knew he shouldn't bring her back but wished that he could. There were a lot of times like that at the orphanage.

Everyone there was like a black goblin, he supposed. All of them, black goblins out to stop him from getting his prize—his little lady and his happiness. Mrs. Cole would be the leader, he was sure of it, and they would all scheme up ways to hold him back because they were afraid of what would happen if he reached his goals. They thought he would take their happiness away by reaching his own. At first, he didn't think so. But now, after years, he didn't think he really needed his own content as incentive to crush theirs.

Some years into the future, when Tom was thirteen, he had had a strange dream the very night before his birthday; the eve of New Year's Eve. Mint-Rose was there. She wasn't a tiny paper doll anymore. She was real, his age and his size. Her long, dark hair was not as dark as his, and her sparkling blue eyes were just as bright as he had remembered. For some reason, he was wearing a uniform of blue and red, an old musket fashioned to rest perfectly on his shoulder. She had danced around him, still not talking, but laughing quietly as he smiled at her twirling. He had kissed her. Just once, and very softly, testing and vulnerable. A small, white hand had touched his cheek. He felt her fingers, slim and cool, brush his skin, and didn't for the life of him open his eyes, which were still tightly pressed shut. And then she was gone. Tom was forced to stand firm, musket cocked upright on his arm, as a black goblin had dragged her away.

It was his fourteenth birthday when Tom woke up and realized that Mint-Rose was not a simple lady like she would be to most. He didn't kiss her because he loved her. He kissed her because she was _his_. And always, always, _always_ did he have to watch the things that were his be taken away by someone less deserving of them! He sick of being the firm and brave tin soldier, dammit! He would not stand silently while others allowed themselves to prey upon his possessions. Tom knew that he was not nice before, but he also knew that he could be a whole lot meaner, too. Everyone was still a black goblin.

When he was fifteen, his speakings with the basilisk helped him realize another important thing. _Not_ everyone was a black goblin. Some were just the simple rat who, while still being disgusting and beneath him, could only put a delay to his goals by inquiring about his pass, just because the rat could, it seemed. But that revelation was nothing compared to the other. The enemy had been narrowed down to one specific and fetid group. _Muggles!_ Muggles were the black goblins! Muggles, Mudbloods, and other impure and terrible riff-raff were what stood in his way. After all, should not everything be linked back to the beginning? The orphanage was his first taste of a goblin's trickery, a horrible and lasting taste that still left a bitter after-touch on Tom's tongue. It was _they_ who consorted against him, _they_ were the ones that never let him have happiness! They should _burn_, _smother_, _choke!—_in the ashes of the anger and misery they had given him in the first place! And they would... Tom... _no_... Lord Voldemort would make sure of it.

But that was years from now, tears from now, and a terrible fury from now as well. The Tom Riddle that sat and fingered the book did not know that he was a wizard. He didn't even know what a muggle was, yet. He only knew that he was different, _special_, and that all he wanted one day was to be able to triumph over a black goblin that stood in the way of his Mint-Rose. And sadly, he still didn't know what his Mint-Rose was either...

Tom determinedly read the small story again, trying and failing to find meaning behind the black words printed neatly on the crisp, white pages. It seemed that Mr. Andersen had left it up to him to discover his ideas, and that frustrated him to no end. He was only eleven, and he had no idea of what his little lady could be, if he was a tin soldier or not! All he knew was the black goblin, and that didn't comfort him at all.

Little Tom closed the book and pondered. He supposed that it wasn't incredibly important to understand everything right now, but he probably should, and would, someday soon. The Brave Tin Soldier was timeless. He was not.

Maybe that's what his dancer could be... time? Maybe power or control? Or maybe she was just life, life that he, apparently, wasn't allowed to live in the children's home. A chance of some type to be new, and great, and... above... Above what he already was, what everyone else was as well.

Tom was just about to stand and go to his wardrobe, preparing to pull out his paper figurine, when someone knocked twice on his door. Tom settled back with his legs stretched in front of him, the book of fairy tales in his lap, resting on the dull gray blankets of his small bed. The door opened. Mrs. Cole came in.

"Tom? You've got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton—sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you—well, I'll let him do it."

A strange man in terrible robes entered, and Mrs. Cole shut the door in on them. Tom was immediately suspicious, and actually quite angry. Who was this?

As the man—Dumbledore—introduced himself as a professor, Tom grew upset.

It was another one. Another black goblin to add to his already remarkably long list...

The man would do well to be wary of Tom, though, and so would anyone else who tried to force him to some mad-house. Tom had many black goblins... That didn't mean Tom couldn't be equally as black. He wasn't always the Brave Tin Soldier.


End file.
